


Earthquake Hands

by 2ne4 (17826)



Series: Rollercoasters [1]
Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: A Baby Fic With Much Less Baby Than That Would Imply, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Trans Harry, Trans Male Character, but it all works out in the end, not mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-13 14:48:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15366978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/17826/pseuds/2ne4
Summary: "So let me get this straight," Fiona said, in a voice so flatly disbelieving that Nick didn't even interject with the obvious joke, "you and Harry are having a baby together, a real human child, but just as friends."In which Nick makes decisions and then can't tell if they're the right ones.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All u need to know going in is that this is set an indeterminate amount of time in the future , and Harry is a post-op trans man who had his eggs frozen before he transitioned . For this story , I'm not interested in the timeline of that or the logistics of being a trans man in a boyband , I just wanted it to be a detail of Harry's character without being the focus of the story , but i am not a trans man myself so pls lemme know if you have any thoughts on anything
> 
> Obviously this is all totally fictitious blah blah , especially Nick's family - I didn't want to put in research for that bit because it felt invasive and creepy , so representations of their characters are definitely not reflective of them irl . This is a story 100% and I mean no offense to anyone depicted
> 
> Title comes from Rollercoasters by Tank And The Bangas , particularly their tiny desk performance , which is literally life changing and i super recommend if u haven't already seen it . this fic also owes a lot to the continued support of the wonderful greenaubergine , who is the best person to scream about nick grimshaw with , and without whom i would still be in a haze of baby names and confusion ~ all the love !

"So let me get this straight," Fiona said, in a voice so flatly disbelieving that Nick didn't even interject with the obvious joke, "you and Harry are having a baby together, a real human child, but just as friends." It wasn't even a question.

"No," Nick replied brightly anyway. "I'm having a baby, Harry's just, like, contributing some genetics, I'm hoping for the cheekbones and the strategic extra nipples with my own charm and doe-like eyelashes. But yes, you're talking to a proud single-dad-to-be."

"Do you even- Like, you do- Nick, I..." Suddenly her voice was tired, sad, and that was not something Nick wanted to linger on.

"Ian and Aimee are going to be the godparents," he chirped quickly, "maybe if you'd been in a stable relationship already it could have been you, but you missed out, love, sorry!"

"I am fully and one-hundred-percent going to murder you," she said, a bit snotty sounding but Nick couldn't thank her enough for how she was trying to make a joke of this. "If you ever come to me crying over that boy ever again, you absolute _fucker_... Christ, I've got to go, we're on air in two minutes, you spring this on me now Grimshaw!"

Nick laughed as if he hadn't deliberately timed it that way. "Have a good show, Fifi! Love you!"

"Listen, Nick, don't..." She sighed with obvious frustration but when she spoke again, she sounded staggeringly honest. "You're going to be the best dad, everyone's always known that. I just..."

"I know," Nick said softly, glad this was a conversation over the phone rather than facetime. "But honestly, this isn't about him. I just want to start a family so badly, and he wants to help out. We're not having a kid together really."

Fiona's voice was slow, quiet; she was choosing her words carefully. "If you know this is what you want, then I'm well happy for you."

"Yeah," Nick said around the sudden lump in his throat, "I really do."

Her voice suddenly sped up to approximately a billion rps. "Then please remember that time at Adele's party when you pinky promised Jack Whitehall you'd call your firstborn Zayn? Great, love you, bye!" She hung up before he could answer and Nick laughed despite himself, then glanced at the clock.

"Well, tits," he said to the empty kitchen, then he went to wrangle Pig and Stinky into the car; he had to leave now if he wanted to make it to Oldham in time for tea.

 

***

 

Nick tried to pretend he wasn’t gasping for air as he and Harry came to a stop near the top of Primrose Hill, and he silently thanked his gods (Rihanna and David Beckham, to be exact) as Harry slumped down onto the grass. He scanned the nearby area for picnics before letting Pig off the lead and sat, knee coming to rest on Harry’s thigh. On his phone, he queued a couple songs then held it out for Harry to peruse, twisting the splitter to avoid their headphone cables tangling; there was a proper summer-y smell of suncream and weed drifting from the other small groups and couples day-drinking in the park and it was still sunny despite being almost 8 in the evening.

“Ouch, what?” He hissed, clutching his ribs as he was poked sharply, looking round to see Harry miming pulling out an earphone. He shifted one headphone off. “You look ridiculous in sunglasses and a hat and earphones,” he said bluntly.

Harry looked affronted, or at least Nick thought he did; it was hard to tell. “This was your idea, this poor excuse for a disguise!”

“Yeah, well, it’s worked, no one’s gunna look at this mess of accessories and think, ah yes, that must be international boybander and fashion muse Henry Stars.”

“You suck,” Harry said concisely.

“Only if the price is right,” Nick shot back, “anyway, what were you saying?”

“I was gunna say that this is a good song, but I’ve changed my mind, it’s shit.”

“Aww, don’t get huffy with me, I may be a twat, but the Smashing Pumpkins are always gunna be a classic,” Nick grinned, “we had this album on two tapes at home, I played the second half so much that it broke.”

Harry hummed in agreement. “Good guitar production.”

Nick nodded, silently pleased, and Harry replaced his earphone and closed his eyes. Nick left his headphones tilted so he could hear Harry’s quiet singing along, breathy and unpretentious. As they played through one more of Nick’s choices and two of Harry’s, Nick kept an eye on Pig and watched a game of hybrid frisbee-football taking place at the bottom of the hill, body warm with both happiness and the unexpected sun. Eventually, Pig got tired of investigating every clump of grass for god-knows-what and came back to plonk her head on Harry’s chest, curling up against his side. Automatically, he tucked an arm around her and Nick felt something squeeze in his heart.

“What?” Under his glasses, Harry squinted up at Nick with one eye open.

Nick knew he had a face like an open book, but he didn’t know what possessed him to answer honestly. “You’re going to make a great dad one day.”

In the grass, Harry’s hand found his and tangled their fingers together; Nick glanced around, but everyone was too absorbed in their own friends to give them a second glance, just another couple enjoying the sun. “I’d like to,” he said quietly, and his hand was shaking.

“Haz? Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just…” His voice was strained. “I’m not gunna be having a shotgun wedding ever, right? That’s not a problem I’ve got, which is, y’know, fine, I just don’t know what I’d do if it was? If you’re gunna have kid with someone that you don’t really love, do you try and make things work for the sake of the kid and risk a messy divorce or do you just organise who gets which days from the get-go?” He rolled onto his side to look at where Nick’s hand was held in his.

“I dunno,” Nick said slowly, unsure if those were meant to be rhetorical questions, “it’s not so unusual to have your parents live apart now.”

“Briana’s pregnant,” he said, uncharacteristically fast.

“Oh… Who’s Briana?”

“Louis’, uh, not-girlfriend.”

“Oh.” Nick’s voice sounded a lot calmer than he felt all of a sudden. “Fuck.”

Pig whined slightly at the lack of attention, and Harry curled his free arm around her, scratching at her belly. With his long hair tucked up into his hat and tattoos mostly covered by a henley, he could have been the kid Nick met four years ago.

“What are you gunna do? What is she gunna do?”

“They’re keeping the baby, Louis’ been in meetings all week, Liam says it’s probably a tell-the-truth kinda situation,” he replied, “so I guess Louis’ll have the kid every other weekend in LA.”

“That sounds good, right?” Between them, Nick’s phone lit up as their playlist ended.

“Yeah,” Harry said, sounding 5am-after-a-shit-party tired, “s’pose so.” With an unspoken agreement, Nick put on Pig’s lead and they pulled off their headphones as they stood to go. Nick’s fingers flexed, awkward without Harry’s between them, so he wrapped Pig’s lead around them.

“At least it came at a good time, you guys will be on hiatus before it’s born, right?”

Harry nodded. “The one thing we timed the breakup right for.”

“It had to happen to someone,” Nick said, not sure if it was the right time to make jokes but also knowing himself well enough to know that that wouldn’t stop him, “though honestly my money was on Zayn.”

“Zayn’s never been as cool as everyone thinks,” Harry said and Nick counted the small smile as a win.

“Who says unplanned pregnancy is cool?” Nick asked. “I’m all about the family planning, it’s so in this season.”

 

***

 

Driving to Holmes Chapel the next day was the most awkward hour Nick had ever spent with his mum. The car smelt like wet dog from the rain, and if he'd know that she was going to insist on coming, he would have tidied up a little; thrown away the old water bottles in the footwell, got rid of the muddy towel from a couple weeks ago, that kind of thing. The radio played, Maya's peppy voice not doing enough to make the car feel any less silent. He could feel the tense energy still rolling off his mum so he spoke, if only to keep himself from replaying their conversation yesterday again.

"It'll be nice to see Anne, been ages since I seen her," he said with false cheer, "must've been a while for you too, right?"

"Went for tea last month," Eileen replied perfunctorily. "I see her more than I see your sister's mother-in-law."

Nick winced a little. "And Gemma too, that'll be well nice."

"How do you think they're gonna react?"

 _Never one to tiptoe, our Eileen_ , Nick thought resignedly, and he pretended to consider his answer as if it hadn't been something he'd worried about before even thinking of his own family's reaction. "Think they'll be quite pleased, really, they've always deserved a bigger family than they've had."

Eileen made a noncommittal hum and the silence fell again.

Nick adjusted his grip on the steering wheel and kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead, focussing on the quiet motorway with an intensity rarely mustered in this car. "Mum, I still don't quite know how you feel about it?" He hadn't meant to phrase it as a question.

"Yes," she said, emotionless, as if that cleared it up. "Just give me a minute, pet, I'm still processing."

"You're waiting for Anne's reaction, I reckon," Nick said, only half teasing.

"I don't need to follow anyone else's lead to know how to feel about my own son, thank you Nicholas!" Eileen's voice was also only partially joking, but they laughed together anyway to clear the air, and she changed the topic to the John Lewis sales.

 

By the time they pulled into the drive that Nick still thought of as Harry's, no matter how many times he'd been here without him, Nick knew a lot more about Molten & Brown handsoaps than he'd like and was still none the wiser about Eileen's feelings towards becoming a grandmother again. As he cut the engine, the front door opened and Michal rushed to Eileen's side of the car with an umbrella.

"Take Stinky," Nick said, having to shout slightly to be heard over the pounding of the rain on the roof, "don't want to track mud all over Anne's nice carpets."

Eileen did, and when Michal returned, Nick had somehow managed to grab Pig, the dog beds, and the offering of biscuits for Anne into one armful.

"Good drive?" Michal called once he'd opened Nick's door, the rain impossibly loud against the umbrella.

"Alright, yeah, no traffic, slightly reluctant company," he shouted back, wondering how he was going to get the car keys out now his hands were full.

"What?" Michal leaned in closer and Pig jumped for his face, tongue first.

There was a confusing jumble of swearwords, only half from Nick, as the dog beds tumbled to the muddy gravel and Michal jerked back in surprise; Pig, who had resigned herself to landing on a disappointingly dry man, barked in delight as she soared across the drive and landed in the sopping wet grass, not even hesitating slightly before rolling straight onto her back. The metal tin of biscuits landed last despite Michal's heroic attempts at catching it, face down in a puddle, with a clang that felt like a punctuation mark or a comedy cymbal.

"Fucking shit, I'm sorry Mike," Nick jumped out of the car, wondering when someone was going to make a sitcom out of _his_ life.

Michal, good man that he was, only laughed as he grabbed up the beds and the tin, bundling them against his chest as if they weren't 80% covered in mud. "Get Pig!" He said, as he thrust the umbrella into Nick's hand and ran back into the house. At the door, Gemma wasn't even trying not to laugh so Nick gave her a regal wave that might or might not have been a subtly-disguised middle finger. Her answering smile was devilishly angelic in a very familiar way. Nick turned away to hide his grin and then groaned as he saw the puddle Pig had chosen to lay down in.

"C'mon, Pig, that's at least 85% horse shit, do you have to swim in it?" She gave no answer, but Nick knew a smug dog when he saw one. He crouched to her level and patted his hip. "Come on, madam, let's go."

She jumped up enthusiastically and Nick spotted his mistake far too late as she came obediently to his side and proceeded to shake most of the mud in Cheshire over him.

"Well that seems about par for the course," he sighed to no one in particular, and picked Pig up - no point in trying to stay clean now - to take them both inside and clean up.

 

Harry still hadn't arrived when he made his way back downstairs half an hour later in a too-small band t-shirt and a pair of Anne's stretchiest tracksuit bottoms, but Anne served up lunch anyway.

"He's late, he eats on his own," she smiled firmly, a practised resignation on her face. "How have you been, love?"

Over food, the five of them covered Gemma's new haircut, Anne's shampoo that Nick promised to replace after using it up on Pig, Michal and Gemma's impending holiday, and Eileen's friend's pie recipe. The conversation never swayed anywhere serious and over time, Nick relaxed. He and Gemma were just reviving an old argument about Panic at the Disco when finally they heard keys in the front door. On their tumble dryer-warmed beds, Pig and Stinky barely reacted and Nick rolled his eyes at them before following Anne and Gemma to the door.

"Hiya, mum," Harry's arms were around Anne almost before the door even opened. Nick averted his eyes slightly as Gemma joined in, not wanting to intrude.

"You're late," Gemma said with the smug air only found in older siblings, and Nick looked back up to see Harry press a kiss to her cheek as they disentangled.

"Flight was delayed in the rain, runways were all clogged up," he said, pulling off his shoes and chucking them under the stairs.

"Neatly, if you please," Anne said sharply but wound her arm around his waist again anyway. Harry managed to keep her pulled to his side as he straightened up his shoes into a line with everyone else's.

Nick stepped aside to let Gemma back into the kitchen and Anne quickly followed, patting his arm on the way past.

"Pig had a turn as the second coming of Jackson Pollock," Nick said in answer to Harry's questioning look at his outfit. "Big fan of the Hoosiers, were you?"

"Not really," Harry's shoulders shrugged against his as they hugged, "but the girl I liked did, so."

"So," Nick repeated, and checked they were out of eyeline from the dining table. "So?"

"Still no reaction from Eileen?"

"Zilch."

Harry held his gaze for a second before smiling gently. "So," he agreed quietly, and he went through to the kitchen. "Eileen!"

Nick watched from the hallway, smiling absently as Harry kissed his mum's cheek and hugged Michal then sat on the floor to let Pig and Stinky climb all over him. _So_.

"Right then, boys, I think there's something Eileen knows that I don't," Anne said without preamble, voice open and friendly and not quite masking her trepidation.

"Yeah, there is," Harry said slowly, not looking up from scratching at Stinky's belly. Nick still hadn't fully stepped into the room.

"Okay, well..." Anne was not even hiding her concern now. "What's up?"

Harry glanced up at him, eyes imploring, so Nick tried his best. "It's actually my news, Anne, see, Harry and me, we were thinking- well, the thing is I want a baby but if you care to take a headcount there's a distinct lack of husbands in my life so I'm not that well suited to an adoption application, and- I'm not going to be a dad age much longer, I don't want to be one of those Jeff Goldblum types, toddlers at sixty, so it's looking unlikely that I'll be able to find someone soon enough, and, uh, well Harry was kind enough to offer- I mean not saying we'll be having it together but-"

"Nick," Gemma interrupted and Nick met her eyes, grateful someone stopped his rambling. "You're having a baby?"

"Uh... Yes. Using Harry's eggs. And a surrogate." He dry swallowed around the nerves, then added unhelpfully, "she's Swedish."

Gemma's hand shook a little on the way up to her throat, her eyes huge as they turned to Harry.

"Yeah?" Anne's eyes were darting between Nick and Harry, unable to settle until Harry looked back and nodded. "Oh Christ, boys." Her hands fluttered near her face, a mirror image of her daughter as her eyes shone.

 _Immediate reaction, there we are_ , Nick thought smugly and looked emphatically at his mother, but she wasn't watching Anne. Her eyes were fixed on Harry, folded on the floor with the dogs, unreadable as ever. There was probably a genetic component to emotional unavailability, Nick reflected sourly.

"Congratulations," Michal said, warm and uncomplicated as he stood to pull Nick into a hug, and the stillness spell was broken. Anne jumped to her feet and stood on tiptoe to press a fierce kiss to Nick's forehead.

"Oh, you're going to be a great dad, Nick, oh my god," she said and squeezed Nick so hard he felt a little faint. "I'm going to be a grandma, oh my- or? I mean, am I?"

Nick watched as Gemma and Harry said things he couldn't hear, crouched on the kitchen floor with their heads pressed together. "Anne, you'd be a grandma to my kid even if I was adopting a child from Timbuktu with no genetic relation to anyone you'd ever even met."

Anne grinned at him. "You're too sweet, darling. Grandma! Oh my god, I'm not old enough!"

Nick laughed and tucked her under his arm, opening up his other to reach for Eileen. "Mum, any advice?"

"Oh, much better than being a mum," Eileen said knowingly, taking Nick's hand, "all of the present-giving, none of the sugar crashes."

"And Gemma," Nick called, "being an auntie is literally the best job in the world."

"Yeah?" She laughed slightly wetly, wiping a hand under her eyes and standing to squeeze Eileen's elbow. "Congratulations."

"Yeah," Nick grinned. With half the subtlety he should be capable of, Harry pulled his pink phone out of his pocket and snapped a picture from his low angle on the floor. Nick ignored it, let him have his candid picture; he never did anything with the pictures he took anyway.

 

***

 

Harry didn't snore, which Nick was grateful for, but he did breathe quite deeply in his sleep. Honestly, Nick found it comforting; between Harry and the dogs, Nick found it very hard to fall asleep without white noise these days. So, slumped on the sofa in front of a dying fire, with his belly full of food and mulled wine and Harry asleep on his shoulder, Nick was very close to dozing off. Everyone else had slipped off to bed half an hour before, but Nick and Harry had tried to stay up for some reason that was now eluding him. As was any motivation to move, it seemed, until-

"Sleeping there, are you, son? You'll do your back in, both of you." Pete's voice was gruff but quiet.

Nick craned his neck to see him hovering in the doorway, not quite awkward but definitely not comfortable.

"Mind you," Pete continued, "maybe he's a bit young for that." The look he was fixing Nick with was more than a little pointed.

Nick couldn't stop himself from rolling his eyes. "We're going up to bed now, dad, just gathering the energy."

Before he could poke Harry awake, though, Pete spoke again. "Your mother wanted to know if you two are dating proper now."

"What, so she sent you to check?"

"No," Pete said, then, after a moment's hesitation, "I wanted to ask."

Nick's body almost jolted like he had whiplash. Was the Christmas spirit making him hallucinate or did his dad just ask him an emotionally involved question? "Err..." He said, intelligently, "...no."

There was almost ten seconds of silence. Pete was glaring at the floor like it owed him money

"Right, and why is, umm, when you-" he cleared his throat. "You obviously like him. A lot. You- err, yes."

Nick felt like he'd been run over by a steamroller. On his shoulder, Harry slept deeply as ever and fuck if Nick wasn't jealous. Pete looked like he was having his teeth pulled and Nick could empathise. It was Nick's turn to examine the carpets as he spoke.

"Come on, dad, he's in One Direction." Blimey, there was some interesting upholstery in this room. "He can't come out of the closet or anything, not now."

"Don't see why that has to affect your private life," Pete muttered.

"I mean," Nick said, voice a thousand times more casual than he felt, "he's also on tour for 11 months of the year or whatever?"

"Not ideal," Pete conceded with a grunt. "We just want to make sure you're, well, happy."

Nick felt at a loss for words. Christmas bloody miracle indeed but this was hell to sit through. "I am, dad," he croaked unconvincingly.

"Well, good," Pete replied, equally as forced. He looked like he was struggling for something to say for a few seconds longer, then nodded emphatically. With a brave stab at a smile, he turned and went back upstairs once more, the creaky stair letting Nick know when he was at the top. Usually he avoided that step.

Happy. Fuck.

Nick huffed out a humourless laugh and shook himself a little, dislodging Harry in the process, who opened his eyes halfway, barely conscious.

"C'mon, Stars," Nick murmured, "bedtime."

"Urff?" Harry said loquaciously.

"Yes," Nick replied seriously and stood to pull Harry up with him.

Later, as they got into bed, Nick avoided Harry's octopus arms, cringing away from the spooning until Harry got the picture and gave up, rolling over to sleep on the other side of the bed. They were sharing a single so there was barely an inch between their backs, but Nick was more aware of it than he was his own body. _Happy_.

Fuck.

 

***

 

Within a week, Nick was wishing that his mum hadn't decided how to react to Nick's news as his phone buzzed with the seventh email that morning with a link to a pram on the Harrods website.

"Phone, Nick," Ian said wearily.

"It's a podcast now, dear, we can always rerecord," Nick replied, only half paying attention because this pram was actually adorable. And over a grand, shit.

Ian plucked his phone out his hands and sat on it. "No," he said firmly to Nick's whine.

"But it's an update from Astrid!"

"No it's not and also I don't care," Ian sighed, "just record the outro and we're done for today, please Nicholas."

Nick huffed like a stroppy teenager just to make the sound technician intern laugh, then put it to the back of his mind. Like Ian said, just get this last bit and they'd be good to go.

"So, that's that for another week, hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, Adele was a right laugh, wasn't she, Ian?"

"As always," Ian said cheerfully.

"We love her, don't we. Thanks again to her for taking time out of her busy schedule, and all our other guests, and thanks to you too for doing the same, I s'pose. Come back next week and we'll be chatting to Dua Lipa, rock superstar Brian May, and HAIM, with a live session from Phoebe Bridgers! Remember you can check out all our old episodes on the Chatshow Notes playlist on Spotify as well as on iPlayer and YouTube. Have a lovely week, say bye, Ian!"

"Bye everyone, have a good one."

"Yeah, have a good one, see you next Tuesday! Bye-ee!" He waved to no one, as always, then fixed Ian with what he hoped was an aloof and haughty stare, holding out his hand. "One take, what did I say?"

"Piss off," Ian said, but he was hiding a laugh badly and handed Nick's phone back anyway.

"Ew," Nick gasped dramatically, "it is literally dripping in arse sweat, hun, has that pesky medical condition returned?"

In the corner, the intern choked on her laughter a bit.

"Nice, babe, classy," Ian deadpanned with an eyeroll at Nick and a passable New York accent, then turned to the intern, "I don't have a medical condition, I promise."

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks," she said, voice nervous, and it was probably the first time Nick had heard her speak. He held his hand up for a high five.

"Bloody ace, uh," he squinted at her badge, "Hasina, top form, brilliant execution, you're hired proper now. Congratulations! Please see Alex in HR to talk about your starting salary."

"Wonderful," Hasina grinned a little maniacally. Nick reckoned they were going to get on well. His phone buzzed again.

"Oh shit!" He grabbed for his jacket as the time flashed up on his screen. "Gotta run, sorry, sorry, love to all, see you on Monday! Have nice weekends!"

 

He rushed enough that he was actually early to the café, so he ordered a couple pastries and a coffee, taking them to the back table by habit, furthest from the window and any nosy passerbys. But, true to form, he'd barely sat down when the bell over the door jingled and a hefty pram proceeded Tomo through the door, Sid sleeping soundly inside, and every time Nick saw him he'd grown inches. Sam followed him in, Teddy balanced on her hip, still unbearably tiny, and left him to park the pram as she wound her way over to his table.

"That's quite an array," she grinned with a nod at the pastries.

"Yes, well," Nick stood to hug her tight, mindful not to jostle the baby, "I am expecting, so I get a free pass until the baby is born obviously. Motherly cravings and all that."

"I don't think it works like that..." Sam said.

"That's the spirit, I say," Tomo laughed as he deposited a sleeping Sid in a chair, "alright, mate?"

"Not bad, yourself?" Nick replied on rote, edging round Sam to hug him.

"Yeah, good, listen," he clapped a hand to the back of Nick's neck, unusually serious. "Congratulations, yeah? We're so pleased for you." He pressed an unexpected kiss to Nick's cheek. This had been happening to Nick rather a lot recently, fierce affection from people who usually had to slap someone's back during a hug to reaffirm their masculinity; turns out a motherly glow really can do wonders.

"Thanks," Nick smiled, then gestured to the table, "help yourself though, my trainer would kill me if I ate all those carbs."

"Oh, brill," Sam grinned, "I'll just grab a pot of tea." She held Teddy out to Tomo.

"Don't look at me, I've gotta take a whiz," he replied.

Nick snorted, then held out his arms, quietly delighted. Sam gave him a knowing look and helped him settle the baby on his lap before going to the counter.

"Just you and me then, little guy," he said, "which is good because apparently your dad is the kind of person who says 'take a whiz'. I should probably just steal you, yeah? It's practically a moral imperative at this point."

Teddy just looked back up at him, slightly incredulous.

"Yeah, you're right, they're pretty okay," he conceded and looked up to see Sam smiling softly at him as she waited for the server. "Your mum's a right beauty, really, and it's a testament to your dad that they deserve each other. You have a lot of love in your house, right?"

He didn't know what it was about babies that invited more honest confessions out him than any interviewer ever could, but as Teddy blinked owlishly up at him, Nick thought he might be blushing.

"Yeah, thought so," he said, a dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Don't worry though, chick, I'll have enough love to give that I'll make up for it being just me. No kid of mine is gunna be left wanting for affection, just you see. I'll spoil 'em rotten, you'll be jealous."

"What are you two gabbing about?" Tomo said, a lot closer than expected.

"I'm offering him a job as my new co-host, he's a really good interviewer," Nick said smoothly, "I was about to start quizzing him on his music taste, that's the true deal-breaker."

"Oh well, that's easy," Sam laughed as she joined them, "Sid's favourite is always Ben Howard, but Teddy loves Sia and only Sia. Preferably the Christmas album."

"Not the record I'd have gone for, but much better than Ben Howard," Nick said thoughtfully, "yep, I reckon we can work with that. You're hired, Theodore S. Campbell, Esquire."

Tomo snorted and Nick tried not to look too put-out as he took Teddy onto his own lap. "How's your surrogate doing? Andrea, right?"

"Astrid, actually, yeah, she's doing okay," Nick nodded, pulling apart an almond croissant, "says her morning sickness is passing."

Sam winced with sympathy as she sat down opposite Nick. "Her first pregnancy?"

"Yeah, says she's treating it as a dry run for when her and her girlfriend have kids."

"Bold move," Sam said, impressed. "And how's the house hunting going?"

"Not so great," Nick admitted, feeling his face twist up with the dissatisfaction that only this topic could bring him. "It's just difficult, 'cause like... I mean it's ridiculous how expensive it is, ennit, and now I've got to take, like, local schools into account and all that. Never lived on my own, either."

"Well, you won't be," Tomo pointed out through a mouthful of apricot Danish.

"No, 'spose not," Nick said, "but a baby doesn't really count, does it, it's not like a real whole human sharing the kitchen with you."

Sam and Tomo shared an incredulous look. "Oh it's so much more than that," Sam said, a laugh bubbling just below her voice.

"Babies take up more space than full sized people in terms of cupboard space," Tomo said with the air of someone still coming to terms with it, "especially since you'll be having all the milk to store. Sure you've thought this through, mate?"

Nick barely surpressed an eye roll. Everyone assumed he was an idiot now. "Yes," he said snippily, them immediately regretted it when Tomo sat back a bit in shock.

"Nick," Sam asked softly, and it was worse than Tomo's reaction really, "are you okay?"

"Yeah, 'course, sorry," Nick said with a concerted effort to smile, "just had an early start this morning."

They looked unconvinced, but luckily Sid woke up and drew all the attention immediately. Nick wondered if his kid was going to be like that, somehow magnetic to it's parents. His mind jumped to Wembley, where Astrid would currently be at work. They were all due in for a checkup next week; he'd ask the doctor if there was a test for the diva gene. When he said as much to Sam and Tomo, he was met with dual snorts of derision.

"Don't think you need to put it through a test for that one," Tomo said delicately.

"Be surprised the kid doesn't come out with a full light show and glitter canon," Sam laughed, then grimaced, "which, like, poor Astrid."

"It has been practising tap dance on her bladder, she says," Nick said, too self-aware to be offended. "Blimey, what if it grows up and wants to be a dancer?"

"All the robots will have taken the jobs by the time our sprogs have grown," Sam said knowingly, "so they'll all live on basic wage and pursue their passions, dancer's not half unlikely."

"My passion is powder paints," Sid announced loudly.

"Powder paint cuisine, more like," Tomo muttered.

Nick held his hand out for a high five. "Right on, little dude. Eat 'em out of house and home."

"Right on," Sid repeated solemnly, and tapped his hand against Nick's like he was signing a binding legal contract.

"Want a bit of my croissant?" Nick asked, with half a glance at Sam, who shrugged.

"Yes!" Sid said quickly.

"Sid, uh-uh, yes what?" Sam admonished.

"Yes please!"

"Great, thank you," Sam said, sharing a proud smile across the table with Tomo. Nick looked away quickly and focussed on passing Sid a very sugary bit.

 

***

 

When Harry had came back into his dressing room, Nick and Eileen hadn't been the only people waiting but he'd come to them first, big and trembling hugs for the both of them. He'd then circled round the room, taking a while with everyone whether they were staff or friend or fan, until he arrived back at Nick's side half an hour later. Everyone except Jeff had left once they'd got what they wanted from Harry, making their way to the pre-after party.

"Wanna go for dinner?" Harry had said, a much calmer smile on his lips.

"Lead the way, popstar," Nick had replied, and Harry had looped one arm through Eileen's and one through Nick's and done so. Now, they were sequestered in the back of a diner that Harry swore did the best korma in New York City, and Eileen was pressing a kiss to Harry's cheek.

"We're so proud of you, love," she said, and it showed in her voice which was warm and fit to burst. "I'm so proud of you."

"Thanks, Eileen," Harry said softly, smiling at Nick as he returned the one armed hug.

"You actually did crush it," Nick said, and he'd had to say that through his teeth before but in this moment, he couldn't have been more honest.

"Did I?" Harry said, acting like he was fishing for compliments.

"It was so brave," Eileen said, patting his hand as she perched herself once more on the tall stool, "I can garuntee it'll be Anne's favourite performance of yours yet. Which reminds me-" she pulled out her phone "- picture for posterity, boys!"

"Mu-um," Nick groaned, just to keep up his reputation, then shuffled round the table to put his arm around Harry's shoulder. They tilted their heads together and smiled, stuck out their tongues, said cheese as directed. On the back of his coat, Harry's hand held tight.

"Lovely," Eileen cooed after approximately seven billion photos, and turned the phone to show a nice one of Harry caught mid laugh and Nick grinning fondly at the camera. "Now you do us!"

After various combinations of Nick, Eileen, Harry, and a passing waiter had had their photoshoots, Eileen's phone beeped up low battery and they got down to actually eating their food.

Frowning down at her naan for a second, Eileen said "I hope Anne doesn't mind my being here..."

"Why would she mind?" Harry asked, shooting a confused look at Nick, but Nick thought he might know where this was going.

"Well, pet, it's just with her not being here and all, I just... I don't want to step on any toes is all."

"But I invited you guys," Harry said through a mouthful of korma.

"You invited Eileen, she invited me," Nick clarified, then waved a hand, "don't even worry about it, mum, Anne's seen Harry sing way more than you have, we only have these tickets 'cause she didn't want 'em."

"Didn't want them?"

"Couldn't make it," Nick corrected himself.

"But I already had two family tickets assigned, so I thought you guys might want to, y'know," Harry shrugged, "trip to New York and that."

Eileen narrowed her eyes at him. "You're not just saying this to make me feel better?"

"Er... No?" Harry said, unsure.

"Gemma didn't want to come? Des? Your grandparents?"

"They couldn't make it, I wanted you to be here, Eileen," Harry said, reaching across the table to take her hand, "it's, like, symmetry, isn't it? You bought us Indian when Nick had his first breakfast, I'm buying us Indian after my first solo performance."

"S'not symmetry if you buy the food," Nick said innocently, and Harry glared at him.

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," Eileen said firmly, "I am buying the food, it's your day, you bonkers thing!"

Nick watched them bicker, a rock and a hard place, and felt his heart expand. He didn't know how he was going to leave them here tomorrow and fly back to England, but the fact that they were staying in New York without him anyway made something flip a bit in his stomach. Eileen was slapping Harry's wrist like he was her own child and Harry was giving in like she was his mother. He wondered if they were going to be like this for the rest of their lives, like family, but he also didn't really have to wonder.

 

***

 

"Hiya, y'alright?" Nick said on rote as he answered the call.

"You went to the ultrasound?" Harry asked without preamble; behind him, the sky was grey with dawn light and pixelated with London's rubbish 4g reception on Nick's phone.

Nick nodded. "Did you see the picture yet?"

"Yeah, I-" he broke off into a cough, glancing at something Nick couldn't see. His voice was rough and Nick did some quick mental maths - 5am in New York so, side note, what the fuck. "It's pretty incredible Nick."

"Aimee says it's already more of a looker than her kids," Nick joked, grinning at the memory of her emoji-laden response on WhatsApp.

"Oh right," Harry said, obviously not catching onto the sarcasm, "you took Aimee to the appointment?"

"Nah," Nick replied, "just sent her the pic you got."

"Sent it round, have you?"

"Yep," Nick said, half an eye on the traffic lights as he crossed the road, "don't worry, I sent one to Anne and Gemma's groupchat."

"Anyone else?"

"I dunno, mum, Greg, Fiona, Finchy, Jane, Pixie, loads of people."

Harry made a strange face and said something that Nick couldn't hear over the sound of a tourist bus driving past. Fumbling his headphones into the jack, he turned up the volume.

"Sorry, you'll have to say that all again, couldn't hear you mate," he said.

Harry seemed to struggle with himself for a second, something sad in the crease between his eyebrows. "Any idea on due date?" He said finally.

That definitely wasn't long enough to have been what he said before, but he looked tired so Nick let it go. "First week of April some time, she thinks," he said, then explained, "the nurse was well good, she's called Sanjee, we get her next appointment too, wish you could meet her. How's New York though?"

Harry looked down for a second then behind himself, as if he had to check the weather in order to answer. "Empty," he said shortly, and when he turned back to the camera, his expression was cryptic.

Nick, who'd been expecting something more juicy, maybe a fun party anecdote, blinked as he came to a stop outside the underground. "You alright, popstar?"

Harry made a visible effort to smile, though something about him still looked closed off, and shook himself. "Yeah, s'just early."

"Not awake yet," Nick cooed, "how come you're up at the arse crack of dawn anyway?"

"Couldn't sleep," Harry shrugged, then continued quickly, "I've got a photoshoot today."

"Not like you to be nervous," Nick said.

"Guess not," Harry said blandly. There was a moment of quiet.

"Harry, are you sure you're alright?" Nick asked, trying to sound a bit more serious. "You usually love New York."

"Don't think I've loved New York in a long time," Harry said, so quietly that Nick wasn't sure he was meant to have heard it, then continued at a normal volume. "I'm okay, I'm coming home in a fortnight anyway."

He obviously did not want to talk about it so Nick let it go, knowing from experience that when Harry got like this, the more you needled him, the less you achieved. "Well, that'll be nice," he said lamely.

"Reckon so," Harry said, "anyway, I should go, let you get going."

Nick glanced up at the tube sign, then showed it to Harry by tilting his phone. "All of London's still here waiting for you, see?" A small but genuine smile twisted Harry's lips for the first time and Nick counted that a win. "See you sometime soon, Haz."

"Bye Nick," Harry said.

"Bye," Nick replied, and hung up.

 

***

 

Nick drummed his fingers against the table nervously, a bad habit he'd had to kick years ago but he was allowing himself today. On the table next to him, a lady with hipster glasses glared at him so he smiled brightly back at her.

"Hi, are you Nick?"

Nick jumped to his feet comically fast and turned to find two girls in their late twenties standing there, nervously smiling. "Hello? Yeah?"

"Great," said the taller one warmly and held out her hand, "I'm Mia and this is Astrid."

"Right, hi!" He shook her hand enthusiatically and wasn't sure wether to go for a hug or kiss or nothing, "Astrid, Mia, so good to meet you finally, have a seat!" He made to pull out a chair but Mia gave him a firm smile and they both took their seats before he could. Nick held his smile in place as he sat, butterflies throwing a proper Annie-Mac-in-Ibiza rave in his stomach. "How are you doing? Did you get here okay? Have you been here before?"

Mia's smile twisted a little as she obviously surpressed a laugh.

"Yeah, bone daddies is great, we come here a lot," Astrid said in lightly accented English, obviously placating him, "good choice."

Nick managed his first breath since they'd arrived and let out a little giggle. "Sorry," he said sheepishly, "I'm dead nervous, never done anything like this before."

"We're the first surrogate you've met?" Mia asked.

"Yeah, and no one else booked to meet yet, so hopefully the last," Nick replied. "This your first rodeo too?"

"You're not the first person we've met, but none of them were right," Astrid said, "and you know I've never actually been pregnant before."

"Right, yeah," Nick said, "so just out of interest, what did the others do wrong? So I can do it right?"

"Dunno, just... Didn't really get on with them, I guess," Astrid shrugged.

"And the last couple were total health freaks," Mia interjected, "wanted Astrid to eat nothing but protein shakes and kale for 9 months."

Nick remembered his failed attempts at kale diets and felt his gut tighten in protest. "Right, no insisting on diets, got it. Wouldn't think that's healthy during pregnancy anyway, right?"

"Exactly!" Mia said, gesturing emphatically with her hands, "and they were nutritionists! Idiots."

"They weren't idiots, M, they meant well," Astrid said but she didn't sound convinced.

"Sure," Mia said fondly, then turned back to Nick. "The first people we met were homophobes and didn't expect me."

"Ah," Nick said, raising his eyebrows, "well that's shitty as all hell but definitely not, uh, a problem you're gunna have here."

"Nah, don't think so," Mia grinned, "I always listened to your breakfast show when I was young, it was nice to have good gay shit to start my day everyday."

Nick smiled, bashful. "Thanks, I tried."

"But the thing with you," Astrid said, and the air around the table suddenly felt more serious, "is the nondisclosure agreements. That is the weird thing for you."

"Oh yeah, I, uh," Nick rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, "it's slightly complicated there." He took a calming breath and adressed the bowl of chopsticks in the middle of the table. "So, obviously I'm asking for a surrogate for an IVF baby, right, so I wouldn't be using your eggs. The NDAs are more to do with asking you not to talk too much about whose those eggs are, as it's, um... It could be an interesting question to the tabloids."

He looked back up and Mia was staring at him intently, obviously interested. Astrid just shrugged. "That seems reasonable."

"Yeah?" Nick said nervously, "I mean, obviously not to accuse you of being, like, the kind of person who would sell your own pregnancy story to the sun, it's just a legal requirement of using the eggs I want to use, for, like, safety reasons."

"For the mother or the child?" Astrid asked.

"For the child, and there is no mother, but yes, the person whose eggs they are," Nick said firmly.

"And do we get to know whose eggs they are or is that part of the NDA?" Mia asked.

"Oh, no, course you guys will know!" Nick said quickly, "I'm not asking you to, like, just trust me and go, that'd be well odd, no, it's just basically an agreement to say you won't tell the papers and that you're legally liable if anyone you tell does tell the papers."

Mia blinked in surprise. "That's... Reasonable, actually. Thought it might be a weird celeb thing."

"It kind of is," Nick smiled, relieved.

"But also cool, like we're in on the secret," Astrid said earnestly, and then the waiter came to take their orders.

"So, Mia," Nick said once the waiter was gone, "found any good music recently?"

Mia grinned. "Oh have I ever!"

 

***

 

_im sorry you had to find out this way..._

_Metro.com | DRAW ME LIKE ONE OF YOUR FRENCH GIRLS: HARRY STYLES SEEN ON DATE WITH PHOTOGRAPHER HELEN PAMBRUM | The new couple were seen wining and dining last night in Toronto..._

Nick snorted at his phone and typed a quick reply - _congratz helen_  - before clicking on the link. He didn't bother reading the article, not worth the effort, just scrolling to the pictures to find a couple blurry longlens photos of a badly lit restaurant and one photo of them leaving through a side door, the flash washing out Harry's skin so he looked like a cartoon of himself, dark tattoos on his collarbones and dark hair tumbling round his shoulders. Nice shirt though. A WhatsApp notification flashed up on the top of the screen.

_sorry for stealing ur baby daddy_

Nick could picture her saying it, cheekily and with eyelashes fluttering in a mockery of angelic that Nick had seen before. He knew she was joking. And yet...

He swiped the notification away, leaving it to his future self to deal with finding a non-bitchy reply. Situations like this would have made his stomach sink before, but now it felt like maybe his chest was going to be empty forever.

 

***

 

Millie's words echoed endlessly in Nick's head as he walked home from the bus stop, and he surpressed a shiver. Maybe if he got cold enough, he'd get ill and he could beg off school tomorrow, avoid having to try and find some other friendship group to sit with at lunch, avoid all the questions that would come entangled in that maneuver.

_He's just so immature, isn't he though?_

He wouldn't have even overheard if he hadn't been let out of detention 5 minutes early.

_I can't be bothered to wait for him to grow up anymore._

She had been his best friend since year 7 and there she was, telling Dina, who only got here this year.

_I'm not gunna tell him about my party, so don't you tell him neither, he'd make it really awkward._

A small part of him acknowledged that maybe being the only boy at a sleepover where boys and girls slept in different rooms might have been boring, but a bigger part of him was only now realising that maybe it hadn't been Millie's mum who came up with that rule.

He blinked away tears angrily, glaring at the ground and furious with himself for being this affected by it all. Millie was kind of mean, she was a total snob, and she didn't like Jane and frequently said so. She had been his closest friend for 4 years now, there was no one else who understood his jokes, and he didn't know who he was without her. He imagined going in tomorrow and ignoring her in form, avoiding her at break, maybe hiding in the practise rooms at lunch; he imagined trying harder to be what she wanted him to be, being cool and confident like Dina; he imagined going home and begging his mum to let him change schools.

He sent up a semi-sarcastic prayer of thanks as he got home and found the house empty because he didn't know if he could have hidden this from his mum in the end, and if she knew then he'd... Well, something. For the first time ever, he almost wanted to tell her - _hey mum, I don't think I have any friends and I haven't slept more than 3 hours a night in months and I finally have proof that no one actually cares about me_. She'd hug him so tight and make him his favourite tea and put in a nice word with some friend's kid and Nick would have a begrudging new friendship group he'd probably learn to love. She'd be so upset. He would never say a word.

He went upstairs to dump his bag in his room and sat on his bed heavily, staring at his reflection on the wardrobe door. He turned his head this way and that, trying to work out what it was that made him look so immature, because he did. He didn't think he was ugly, but he wasn't handsome, and his hair had never quite figured out what it was doing. He pulled a face, scrunching up his eyebrows, then sighed. He looked down at his hands and his breath caught in his throat, a tiny hitch which locked him into place, lungs bursting for a few seconds until he let it out into a big sob. His eyes screwed shut and he curled up into a ball, imagining his heart pouring up and out of his throat and evaporating into the air as he trembled. Then he relaxed, blinking his eyes open and swept a hand across his cheeks. His fingertips came away dry. He looked back up at himself in the mirror, red-faced and blank.

Never mind.

 

***

 

Nick was ignoring Harry's texts again. He knew he shouldn't be. That Harry was even texting at all was bad enough, but the 17 missed calls in the last week probably had forced him to take drastic action. But it wasn't like he needed Nick for baby updates, he had Astrid's number too, so it was fine for Nick to just let his phone vibrate every few hours and swipe the notification away without reading past the first word or so. No problem at all.

He was just busy, he reasoned reasonably as he slumped in the back of an Uber taking him away from yet another failed house viewing. Too big this time, even if he could afford it and it was near a good primary school; it would feel empty with just two people, no matter how grown they were. It was the third viewing in as many days and Nick should probably be getting worried about how close to the due date he was getting without moving into a child-friendly house, but he was mostly just lethargic. All the baby stuff was just sitting in boxes in his hallways and stairwells and he figured there was no point unpacking it just to repack it again, so his house was becoming more and more cluttered, which was messing with his head. Yep, that was definitely the problem. For sure. On the seat next to him, his phone buzzed again, a call this time, and Nick let it ring to voicemail. He hoped relentlessness wasn't genetic.

Another text flashed up on the screen a second later - _have you moved your spare key???_  - and Nick groaned loudly. Perfect.

"Y'alright, mate?" The driver asked.

"Yeah, no, I'm good, could you just-" Nick sighed as the came close to the end of his road. "Could you just drop me here? Thanks."

The driver nodded and pulled over. "Cheers, mate," he called as Nick closed the door behind himself.

"Yep," Nick said, a second too late, and he internally winced. Great, now he was rude to cabbies. Fuck his life, and today in particular.

Again, his phone buzzed - _dont worry, ill go get aimees k..._  - and Nick debated just letting him leave, hiding in a bush until his driver had returned to pick him up. He really, really wanted to. Instead, he hotfooted it round the corner and up to his driveway, remembering to turn his phone off and throw it in his bag at the last second. When he saw Harry, sitting unobtrusively on the doorstep, he tried to look surprised. He also tried to not react to what looked like an overnight bag on the doormat, and he wasn't sure how successful he was in either endeavour.

"Hi," Harry called, one hand coming up in an awkward kind of wave.

"Harry, hi!" He skipped closer for a hug just so he could hide his face as he spoke. "I thought you were in LA this week?"

"Yeah, I was, I, uh, I came back," Harry said, and they stepped apart again. "I tried to call you."

"Oh, sorry, my phone's out of battery," Nick breezed, hoping Harry wouldn't challenge him on it. "So, d'you want a cuppa?"

"Sure," Harry said, with a tired smile. They were silent as they got inside and took off their shoes, Harry leaving his big carry-on in the stairwell, and Nick led the way to the kitchen. He filled the kettle more than was probably necessary and busied himself with finding Harry's mug in the back of the cupboard, setting it down alongside his current favourite one, a big tin camping mug from the RA gift shop.

"Here you go," Harry said from behind him, and Nick turned to see Harry had brought the charger over from the table and plugged it into the wall near the oven. He was offering it to Nick now.

"Oh, right, yeah," Nick said, pulling his phone out of his bag and passing it over. "Thanks."

"Probably a girl, then," Harry said as he plugged in Nick's phone and put it on the counter behind him. "How are we feeling about that?"

"Oh thank God, you have no idea," Nick said, more an exhalation of relief than actually voiced words. "Don't know what I would have done with a boy, honestly."

"Nah, you'd do great," Harry said and Nick hated how polite it all was. "But I know you are way more excited about baby clothes now."

"Oh, for fucking sure," Nick grinned, not having to fake any enthusiasm for this topic, "did you see the new Saint Laurent baby shoes?"

Harry's smile turned from formal to genuine in a way Nick could not describe. "I actually did, yeah, I like the little brown boots."

"Course you do, 'cause you're predictable," Nick said knowingly, handing him his mug. "I'm gunna get her the navy ones."

"And you say I'm predictable," Harry said smugly, and took a sip of his tea. "Any thoughts on names yet?"

"I dunno, Barbara?" Nick said the first thing that came to mind. He hadn't actually talked to anyone about it yet; Harry only knew the gender because Astrid had mentioned it in a text, thinking Nick would have told him.

To Harry's credit, he didn't spit his tea out with laughter. "Barbara Grimshaw, wow, yeah, umm," he said, slightly strangled, "I was thinking something gender neutral maybe?"

Nick blinked hard a couple times. "I'll, uh, take that into consideration, I guess." The awkward silence returned.

"So, how's house hunting going?" Harry said hastily, and Nick couldn't thank him enough for the change in subject.

"Oh, you know," Nick said breezily, then lost all bravado. "Shit."

"How come?"

"Dunno, too big, too expensive, too close to a main road, take your pick," Nick said, waving his hand dismissively. "And I thought looking for a house with dogs was hard!"

"Yeah, s'pose you still need a place that has good dog walks too," Harry hummed.

"Yeah, and solid nurseries and primary schools, stairs that wouldn't kill a kid if they fell down them, a garden or at least a yard with grass, and a mortgage that wouldn't break the bank," Nick sighed, "but you didn't come here to listen to me whine about boring shit, sorry."

"Actually, that's sort of why I'm here," Harry said, tugging a little on his bottom lip, "I may have found a housing solution for you."

"You have?" Nick said, nonplussed.

"Yeah, so I was, uh, you know I have, like, a couple of houses? Around London?"

"Yes, yes, popstar, you're very rich, we get it," Nick grinned. Things could get awkward sometimes, but ribbing Harry was always going to be fun.

"Exactly," Harry said cheekily, not giving Nick an inch, "I'm very rich, and I was doing some research and there's some really good schools, like state schools, near this smallish house I own in, like, St John's Woods-ish?"

"Okay..." Nick said, not sure where this was headed. "I can't really afford the down payment on a house in St John's Wood, is the thing, but are any of the schools, like, particularly a good idea, you think?"

"Well, I mean, they're all good I reckon, I don't really know what to look for, but like, it's more that they're close to the house, and it's quite a small house anyway, so I was thinking, like...?" His voice trailed off in a way that Nick recognised as actually nervous. Holy shit.

"Are you trying to sell me your house?"

Harry looked relieved. "Yeah, I think so."

Nick lent heavily against the counter, legs suddenly a bit wobbly. "Haz... Look, that's really kind and all, but I can't afford St John's Wood, especially not if it's the kind of house you usually buy."

"It's I think one of the first houses I ever bought, actually, so it's quite small," Harry said, continuing on in that casual tone, as if this was all no big fucking deal. "What's your budget?"

Nick snorted a little. "Nice try. What's the house worth?"

"How much are you trying to pay?" Harry repeated.

"Oh, fuck off," Nick said, actually quite annoyed now, "I'm not telling you some vastly underwhelming amount of money just so you can say, like, oh how convenient, my house is worth just a hundred quid shy of that! I don't need charity, thanks though mate."

Harry frowned a little, the crease between his eyebrows deepening by the second. "You think this is charity?"

"I mean-" Nick cut himself off with a sharp laugh and shrugged. "You are trying to give me a multimillion pound property for basically pennies, what else could that be?"

"I don't know, maybe I'm trying to help out my family?" Harry said, voice quick with disbelief. "And I'm not giving it to you, you're buying it off me. I mean, fuck knows I'd like to, but we all know you're-" he gestured in Nick's general direction.

"I'm what?" Nick said, voice echoing loudly in the silent kitchen. "And what do you mean, _your family_ , you're not the kid's dad, I am!"

"My eggs though, or had you forgotten?" Harry was raising his voice too now, and Nick realised they were both standing straight as ramrods, fists clenched tightly.

"Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot! Your eggs! Not like I don't hear that literally every fucking waking second of my life! Having Harry Styles's baby, I am! Not my baby, no, yours! Never mind that I'm the one changing my whole fucking life for this, that I'm the one who actually wants to raise a kid!" Nick was definitely shouting now, and there was something hard in Harry's expression that was just making it worse. "But suddenly you want to help out _your family_  when you don't even live in the same fucking country most of the time?"

There was a muscle jumping in Harry's jaw as he glared at Nick. _Go on, punch me_ , Nick thought viciously, and it only made him angrier as Harry visibly calmed himself.

"Okay, I'm sorry, never mind, it was just a thought," Harry said in a voice that was barely containing itself.

Nick knew he was being mean, but it felt like he was watching himself from outside his body, powerless to stop it. Or maybe he was just making excuses. "You're not her parent, you knew what you were signing up for," he snapped.

"Oh, get fucked, Nick," Harry said with a venom that Nick didn't know was possible. He grabbed his phone off the counter and had one foot on the step before he turned to look back at Nick, seeming to have a battle with himself as he struggled for words.

"Spit it out, then," Nick sneered, crossing his arms.

"We fucking could have," Harry's voice was raw with emotion; anger, misery, exhaustion, even a little spite. Nick knew what he was talking about, of course he did. "I really would have, Nick." He took the stairs two at a time and the door had barely slammed when Nick burst into tears.

 

***

 

"So, I was thinking-"

"Dangerous," Nick interjected.

"-and - fuck off - I was thinking and I never got my birthday kiss," Harry said, pushing past Nick and stepping out of his shoes on the way to the sitting room.

"Oh yeah?" Nick grinned, shutting the door and following, "how d'you figure that one?"

"I don't know, you tell me," he said, fixing Nick with a glare that was only semi-joking as he flopped onto the sofa.

Nick, who was even now, two days later, slightly hungover still couldn't quite muster the energy to press Harry on that seriousness, so he cocked one hip out and pressed a finger to his lips like a pinup pretending to think. "Ooh, let me guess, it doesn't count because, I dunno, it was less than 30 seconds long? Or how do they judge kisses in LA, like, there was no removal of clothes, or summat?"

Harry just look confused. "What? No, it's 'cause we didn't- I mean, I don't... It's 'cause you didn't kiss me?"

"What, you think I'm too femme to have taken the initiative, did the lipstick confuse you?" Nick rolled his eyes. "Just because you're the manly one doesn't mean that _you_  kissed _me_  by default. Either way, it definitely still counts, promise fulfilled."

Harry had gone slightly pink and Nick narrowed his eyes, a golden possibility blooming in his heart of kindest, best-friendest, definitely-not-vindictive hearts.

"Harold, dearest," he said, practically purring, draping himself over the arm of the sofa as Harry scooted upright, "do you mean to tell me that you, the birthday boy, do not remember what is likely the best snog you are ever going to have?"

Gaze fixed on the coffee table in a way that suggested it might have the cure for cancer inscribed upon it, Harry coughed suspiciously. Nick couldn't help himself.

"Yeah, alright," Harry said after a minute, voice exasperated against the echoes of Nick's laughter, "it's not that funny..."

"Like fuck is it not, popstar," Nick said, wiping a tear from his cheek. He hiccupped. "How long have you been going on about me owing you a kiss? 18 months now? And now you can't remember it?"

"You make me sound like a perv, it's just fair, you've made out with all your other friends!" Harry's burgeoning grin was taking the edge off his affronted tone.

"No, Haz," Nick said, sobering up rapidly, "you make me sound like a perv, snogging drunk fucking teenagers when they won't remember it." His smile felt like a grimace now, and he sunk into the sofa cushions where he'd fallen off the arm. "Jesus, that's a misstep."

It was Harry's turn to roll his eyes. "Come off it Nick, you weren't exactly coercing me into anything, I have been quite literally begging for it for years."

"Teenage years, very young years, an eighth of your life really," Nick groaned and pressed his face into a pillow, "Harr-yyy..." A toe poked into his side and he made a noise that was definitely not a yelp, sitting straight up.

"I didn't come here to commiserate about you feeling old," Harry said impatiently, "I came here for my birthday kiss."

Nick opened one eye to stare at him, disbelieving. "You can't be serious?" His voice came out higher than he would have liked.

"Come on," he said, blinking angelically, "you don't want our only kiss to be you taking advantage of a drunken teenager, do you?"

"Oh no," he replied sarcastically, "much rather it be a teenager taking advantage of a hungover me!"

"That's what I was thinking," Harry smiled smugly, and his eyes flickered to Nick's lips hungrily. Nick felt something sinking in the pit of his stomach, maybe not in the fun, sexy way. Harry pressed forward, Nick held in place by the arm of the sofa, and turned towards him, mad curls sticking up in every direction. He licked his lips, hooded eyes now fixed on Nick's mouth, and Nick was suddenly viscerally aware that this was the boy who convinced supermodels and popstars that he was worth the trouble to sleep with. The trouble part of that equation suddenly seemed a lot less pressing.

"Okay, okay, okay," Nick said, holding up his hands in defeat, "you get a re-do, one kiss, just... Just don't- one kiss, okay?"

"Is that all you give to Henry and Pixie and the others?" Harry asked with that same false innocence.

"Yep," and they both knew Nick was lying. The room fell silent and Nick suddenly wished the TV was on, or some music, anything, and wondered if it would be too weird to quickly put on a CD. But what CD could fit this mood, what was the right balance of sexy to casual to distracting, was there anything that could make this feel like no big deal? His go-to makeout album was way too intimate for this and he was pretty sure the CD that was in the player currently was, like, the Sugababes or something. And, fuck, he'd been hesitating too long and the longer he waited, the more significant this was going to feel.

Too quick, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Harry's clumsily, bumping their noses together so Harry flinched away automatically. He sat back again, heart pounding traitorously. "There you go, happy birthday," he said, hoping he didn't sound as hysterical to Harry as he did to himself.

"Jesus, no," Harry said simply, and pulled him back in with a hand to the back of his neck.

The other hand touched Nick's chin softly, guiding it so their faces fit together comfortably and Harry's lips could gently press against his. Nick found his hands braced against Harry's thighs with no idea of how they got there, and couldn't help but kiss back, eyes falling closed. The tip of Harry's tongue traced against his lips, not so much coaxing them as reminding them that their natural state was open against his. It was soft and easy and deeply, deeply good to go along with it, pressing back against him, softly groaning as Harry's fingers tugged the hair at the nape of his neck, revelling in the breathy sighs Harry gave him in return, following as Harry laid back and pulled Nick over him. Nick shifted his weight to his arms as he hovered over Harry, letting himself sink just enough that they were pressed chest to chest, Harry's knees up around his hips so they could fit on the short sofa. Ever so slightly, Harry's hips started to shift, pressing him up against Nick's thigh, and _oh_ , and-

Nick had never moved so quick as when he heard the knock on the front door. For that matter, he'd never seen Harry manage to get the TV on in one try before, Nick's staggering array of remotes usually eluding him. He jumped to his feet, smoothing his hair nervously and hoping he didn't look too well-snogged as he skipped to the door. He glanced back at Harry and he was sitting too-stiff on the couch, staring intently at the TV with his hands crossed over his lap.

"Parcel for you, mate," the lady at the door said with a voice that belied a long shift of boredom ahead. "Sign here, please."

"Sure," Nick said, smiling a bit too wide as he put the box down behind him and put a couple of lines into the machine that couldn't pass as a signature if they tried. "Thanks!"

"Have a nice day," she said monotonously, already walking away.

"You too!" He called, and shut the door loudly.

"What was that?" Harry called from the other room.

"Just a parcel, err..." Nick turned to look for it, and his heart jumped as he recognised the packaging. "Fuck, Alexander McQueen have sent me some free stuff!" He grabbed the box excitedly and ran back into the other room, landing more on Harry's lap than on the sofa.

"Easy there," Harry laughed as Nick tried to move back to a respectable distance without being too obvious.

"Fuck off, not all of us can afford to buy designer every time we want, popstar," he squawked as he pulled open the box. Several bottles of moisturiser and toner and suncream stared back at him. "Bit rude," he said absently as he pulled one out, "I'm not a wrinkled old man yet."

"Yeah, but," Harry said, noticing something else underneath and pulling it out to reveal a purple and silky looking fabric, "this is pretty alright."

"Hands off, Styles," he hissed, snatching it back. He couldn't even see straight, this could be the ugliest shirt in the world and he'd never know. "Oh, gods of marketing campaigns, thank you!"

Harry threw his hands up in defeat, grinning. "Have it your way, we both know it'll be mine eventually!" He patted Nick's knee, who tried not to flinch, and stood. "Want a cuppa?"

"Erm, if you can find some non-disgusting teabags then sure," he replied, pretending to be distracted as he looked through his various presents. Harry left the room and he closed his eyes, willing his heart to stop racing; traitorously, it didn't.

 

***

 

"What I don't get," Aimee slurred as she flopped down onto Nick's bed, "is why Harry's even involved at all anyway. I mean, who has a kid with their ex deliberately?"

"He's not my ex," Nick huffed, aiming to lie back next to her and instead landing awkwardly on her shoulder, "oops, sorry love, but we never dated, just fucked a little, what's a little water between the bridges under friends or sommat."

"Oh come off it, you were never boyfriends but you were in love, reckon he still is," Aimee said and then smacked his head rather a lot harder than necessary. "Get off my tits and help me get these boots off."

"Alright, madam, calm the aforementioned tits," Nick snorted and tried to make a dignified descent to the floor. He failed, but Aimee was still staring up at the ceiling so she missed it, thankfully.

"But, like, will the kid call him dad and you papa, or what? And when will you tell me what the gender is?" Her voice was breathless in the way that meant she was truly hammered but Nick was feeling more sober by the second.

"No, he won't be dad, I'll be dad and papa and father, he's not going to be a parent to the kid, he'll be, like, uncle, or sommat." Nick finally got the zipper to work on the stiletto boot and cheered a little internally. "Can't remember what we agreed."

"Nicholas." Nick had got the boot half off when Aimee swung her legs out his reach, so it went flying across the room and hit the door with a dull thunk. When he looked back, Aimee's face was a lot closer than he expected and he fell back onto the floor with a rather Stinky-like yelp. "You're avoiding the question," she said, "why is he involved?"

"Well, I don't know anyone else who's had their eggs frozen, I didn't want to just get a random donor I'd never met," he said, then hesitated. But this was Aimee and she was probably too far gone to remember this tomorrow anyway, and what was that saying about getting things off your chest and being able to breathe? "And Harry is like, what if he ends up settling down with someone who doesn't produce sperm, or someone who wants to adopt, or he just doesn't settle down? Seems like a waste."

"Harry seems like the type to adopt," Aimee said and Nick pulled himself back up to sit on the bed. She pushed her forehead against his thigh.

"He once told me he only had his eggs frozen because he wanted to protest the forced sterilisation of trans people anyway."

"So now, suddenly, it's all important he has kids with you?"

"He did offer, I didn't, like, threaten to cut off his hair if he didn't give me children or anything," Nick said, rather hysterically. "Aims, I'm making a mistake, aren't I?"

"Oh babe, no, come here," Aimee sat up, swaying slightly as she curled herself around Nick, resting her head on the back of his neck so they could both pretend he wasn't on the verge of tears. "Everyone knows that you're going to be an awesome dad, you're really going to be so good to this kid."

"But the Harry thing, everyone thinks I'm in love with him, I'm not," Nick's hands came up to cover his face, "I'm not."

There was a pause.

"It's just-" Nick felt quite desperate, his breaths punching their way in and out of his chest without leaving much oxygen behind, "I know when people say, like, you're expecting, or do you have a name yet, or whatever, I know they're saying you, plural. Not you, singular, Nick the dad, but you, plural, Nick and Harry. No one thinks I'm enough for this kid on my own, Aims." Suddenly he was blinking quite a lot. "Why does no one ever think I'm enough on my own?"

"Oh, sweetie, no," Aimee wrapped her arms around his neck tight, and he leaned into her embrace as his throat burned. "Don't think like that, that's not true, c'mon... You're enough for me, you're more than enough! You're my best friend, and you know I'm a great judge of character, so you can't put yourself down!" She was really trying, to her credit. Nick screwed his eyes shut and took a shaky breath.

"I was hired by Radio 1 because my friends all got famous," he said, finally out loud, "and my famous friends like me because it sounds good on the show; I couldn't adopt because no one trusted me with a baby on my own, and me and Harry didn't work out because I- because he-" he cut himself off, unable to finish.

"Because he went away," Aimee finished his sentence quietly. Nick shook his head.

"No, long distance we could have dealt with," he said hollowly, "but LA? Jamaica? A hundred tour venues in two dozen countries? I can't compete. What's so interesting about me when you can have all that?" Aimee had pulled back but he couldn't look up to meet the pity he knew he'd find in her eyes. "Madison Square Garden, Aims. It's just a building. I can't even compete."

"Why's it an either or? No, Nick, look at me." She learnt over until he couldn't help but look at her, sheepish against her fierce expression. "When did he pick performing over being with you?"

Nick almost laughed, incredulous. "What do you want, exact dates? Just Google them Aimee, Harry Styles Live on Tour," he scoffed.

"I didn't ask when he went on tour," she hissed, "I'm asking when you knew he'd chosen his job over you. Because if I know you at all, I'm betting you 'made the decision for him', right?"

He could definitely hear the quote marks in her voice. "That's not fair, I-"

"And he was probably jumping for joy when you told him, yeah? Oh so thankful that you took that awkward conversation off his hands, yeah?" Her voice was dripping with sarcasm.

Nick watched his hands fidget in his lap and set his jaw.

"Everyone thinks you're having his baby because you fucking are," she said, suddenly deeply exhausted. "You just won't admit it."

"That's not true," Nick forced out from between his teeth, sudden fury in the pit of his stomach.

"Isn't it?"

Something hot and bitter burned in Nick's throat. "It's my decision, and his. Not yours, not my mum's, not anyone's." He stood abruptly and grabbed the blanket off the end of the bed.

"Where are you going, come on-"

"I'm sleeping on the sofa," he said, telling himself unsuccessfully that she wouldn't hear the hysterical note to his voice. "Good night."

"Fuck, Nick, come on, I'm sorry," Aimee said, "please just at least help me get this fucking boot off?"

"Fuck's sakes, I'm trying to storm out here!"

"I know, I'm sorry, you know I can't get these off on my own!"

Nick hesitated for a second before throwing his hands up in exasperation and dumping the blanket on the floor. "We can't even fight right, fuck!"

"Then let's not fight," she said, taking his hand as he sat back down.

"But you think I'm such an idiot that I'd subject a real life actual infant to being a relationship pawn," Nick said miserably, "how am I meant to feel about that? Hunky dory?"

"That's not what I'm saying, I'm sorry babe, this is all coming out wrong," she said, truthfully enough to give Nick pause. She sighed heavily then visibly collected her thoughts, taking a deep, calming breath in and out. "Why did you choose to use Harry's eggs really? Not just because he was there, yadda yadda, I mean why not just use an egg bank, someone random you've never met?"

Nick blinked at the floor for a few seconds, not actually seeing it, as he realised that no one had actually asked him about this before. Maybe he hadn't really asked himself this, not properly.

"Because I admire him," Nick said honestly. "I'd be happy to see a lot of, like, his personality in any children I have, and you know I..." He hesitated before forcing himself to continue. "I think the whole country knows why I'd want kids with him."

"So why don't you have the kid together?" Aimee pulled their hands into her lap, her other hand coming to trace calming patterns onto his wrist.

Nick watched that action as he replied. "I can't ask him for that, Aims, I can't ask him to give up his life for me."

"You didn't give him a choice, it seems," Aimee said, a prompt rather than a rebuttal.

"I didn't think I had to," Nick said, feeling some kind of pressure ease at his temples, "he's never been shy about what he wants. If he loved me, I'd know, wouldn't I? It'd be easy."

"Is having to work at love so bad?" Aimee asked, and she learnt her forehead on his shoulder.

"It can be," Nick whispered, thinking of the time he got given a playboy magazine by his dad on his 18th; of Anne crying down the phone after yet another miserable first date; of standing furious in the kitchen and wanting nothing more than Harry to give him a reason to hate him. For the first time in so many words, Nick admitted to himself that he was terrified of this, the big bold question mark over his whole future. "Aimee, am I going fuck up my daughter?"

There was silence in Nick's dark bedroom for so long that he began to wonder if she was asleep on his shoulder.

"No," she said finally, a little croakily but very fiercely. He looked down to see a tear drop from her nose, dark with mascara. From the black tracks down her cheeks, it was evidently not the first. "Nick, all you do is read articles about parenting on your phone now, you've talked about nothing else for 6 months, you bought a goddamn baby gate even though you don't have a house with a nursery yet!" She choked out a wet laugh. "You know how I really know you're going to be good?"

Nick nodded wordlessly, squeezing her hand just as tightly as she was gripping his.

"Because you're scared shitless."

"I really am," he said wetly, then scrubbed a hand under his eyes. "Fuck, this is why we shouldn't drink wine! We're so weepy!"

Undeterred, she grabbed both his hands back and pulled him to be sat directly face-to-face. "Nicholas Grimshaw, I love you."

"I love you too," he smiled weakly.

"Talk to Harry, please," she said with the same intense focus, "tell him everything you told me, and don't let yourself lie."

"Okay," Nick said, because how could he not? It had taken a figurative slap round the face from the strongest person he knew, but what else was left? He'd tried lying to himself, he'd tried ignoring it, he'd tried living with it. In the end it always came back to this - him, Harry, and their kid. Almost without looking, he set his alarm for early the next morning. He had a long drive ahead.

 

***

 

Nick looked up from his phone, unable to believe his eyes, not trusting himself to have understood. Perched on a sun lounger, Harry was worrying at his thumbnail with his teeth. Nick suppressed a very motherly instinct to slap his hand away. "What does this mean?"

"That's the clinic where my eggs are frozen, back in London," Harry said, and if Nick had known him any less well than he did, he would have missed the nerves in his voice.

"Yeah, okay, I mean," Nick couldn't form the logical next thought when connecting this to their conversation last night, just in case it wasn't right and he died of disappointment, "why are you showing me this?"

"You wanted a surrogate and an egg donor, and like," he shrugged, "I dunno, no more uterus here but I can do one of those things for you."

Nick opened and closed his mouth twice, unable to form a coherent thought. His sperm, Harry's eggs, Harry's kid, his kid. _His kid_. He sat down next to Harry heavily.

"Obviously it was just, like, it was just a thought, I'm not asking for like, anything, just, y'know," Harry said quickly, mistaking Nick's speechlessness for hesitation, "no worries, I just thought- doesn't matter."

"Harry," Nick's voice came out as a whisper, "are you serious?"

Harry looked directly at him for the first time since the link had popped up in Nick's texts and Nick had come to the pool to find him sunbathing in the LA sun. "Yeah."

"Then yes," Nick said, faster than he probably should have.

"Yes, like, as in...?"

"Yes as in yes, like, yes," Nick said through his dry throat, something stinging with how badly he suddenly wanted this. He could almost see this tiny baby, with freckles and clear green eyes and a stupid fuzz of hair from the moment it was born. It couldn't happen any other way now.

There was a moment's silence.

"Well, okay then," Harry said, slightly shocked.

"Fuck," Nick said, breathless.

"Fuck!" Harry agreed, and as one they stood into a fierce hug.

"And here I am, thinking I was visiting you for your birthday," Nick laughed, "way to upstage my gift, Styles!"

"I love to upstage you Nicholas," Harry said fondly, "it is my greatest pleasure in life."

"Glad I give you so much pleasure then, fuck!" Nick stepped back, then pulled Harry in again, unable to settle. "Fucking hell! You don't have to worry about a thing, I'll get it all sorted, I won't make you pay child maintenance or anything, you won't have to change a thing about your life, I promise!"

"Oh, yeah, alright," Harry said, but Nick barely heard him over the pounding of joy in his own ears. He really was having a kid, he actually was having his own kid. Well, IVF allowing, and that thought sobered him up a little, but his heart still felt like it was flying.

"This is all I've ever wanted," he said quietly, and he felt Harry's grip on him tighten momentarily.

"Then I'm happy for you," Harry said, and Nick didn't pay attention to how.

 

***

 

Nick's heart had started beating out of his chest somewhere near Birmingham, and it got impossibly stronger as he walked up the drive to the house. He breathed in four, held four, out eight and knocked.

Anne opened the door with an unreadable expression. "Nick, hiya," she said, calmly neutral, "everything okay?"

"Yeah, I, uh..."

"Astrid is fine and all?" She remained leaning against the doorframe, door pulled to so he couldn't see into the house.

"What? Oh yeah, of course, that's not why I-" Nick broke off and looked back out at the garden under the grey skies, searching for the right words. He really should have prepared something for this situation. He looked back at Anne, with her kind features drawn tense in a way he'd never seen before. "Were you expecting me at all?"

Something softened about her brow in a way that was familiar enough. "I don't think he was," she said sadly, and stepped aside to let him in. Closing the door behind her, she jerked her head towards the sound of the TV, raising her eyebrows in something more than a dare and less than a threat, and wordlessly went upstairs. Nick watched her go as he slipped his shoes off, then walked straight into the sitting room without a second to think. Thinking was, apparently, not his strong suit when it came to this.

"Nick?" Harry said, shocked.

A small part of his brain noticed that he was watching Truly Madly Deeply, that the volume wasn't up high enough for him to be paying full attention, that the film was just beginning but the popcorn bowl was already more than half empty. Most of his brain was focused on the pitiable red rims under his eyes.

"Harry, I lo-" Nick started, and his voice died in his throat. Bravado could only get you so far and, in the end, he wasn't that brave. He restarted. "Aimee told me to come talk to you."

"Right," Harry said flatly, hands gripping his own hunched shoulders as if to protect from some cold wind.

"And I, uh, yeah. I thought I probably should."

"Okay." Harry wasn't giving him anything.

"So, um, I guess I..." Nick trailed off again, another false start. He was feeling the beginnings of hysterics building in his lungs. "Sorry, do you mind if I pause it? I'm starting to feel a bit like dead Alan Rickman over here."

Harry just shrugged and shifted up the sofa to make space for him to sit.

Nick fumbled for the remote and ended up turning the screen off. Close enough, he reasoned, and perched on the very edge of the cushty sofa, feeling everything he needed to say buzzing on his tongue. It was a bit of a Mean Girls situation really, word vomit or actual vomit? Best to take your chance and just go.

"I think I'm afraid of being with you because I'm worried I'm not enough on my own and it'd be really scary to try and be enough for you on top of that."

Nick blinked a bit in surprise, taken aback by his own mouth; Harry looked like he'd been hit by a freight train. There was a long moment of silence.

"Aimee told you to tell me that?" He asked slowly. Nick could almost see the buffering symbol in his eyes.

"More or less," Nick said.

"But I ran halfway up the country to get away from you." His unerring honesty should have stopped surprising Nick a long time ago, and yet here they were.

"I don't blame you," he managed.

"But you did follow," Harry said thickly, and Nick looked away, studying the seam of his jeans where it had got all twisted near his knee. He wasn't really looking at it though.

"Yes."

"So now you've worked it out, I'm meant to just, like, let that be that?" Harry said in a cracked voice, and Nick was definitely never looking up again. "No say in the matter again?"

"No, that's not what I'm doing, I haven't, like... I don't know what to do," Nick said, letting himself feel the full weight of his misery for the first time and he was seriously worried it was going to crush him. "I just wanted to talk to you about it, you're one of my best mates."

"Your mate, yeah," Harry said with a derisive, if wet, snort. "That's what I want."

"What do you want?" Nick asked, maybe just so Harry wouldn't ask him.

"Not to be mates," Harry said hollowly, and Nick felt his heart disintegrate between his lungs. That was that, then. He tried not to choke on a sob.

"Okay, okay, can I just-" and now he was desperate, "please let me keep her, we can have joint custody or whatever you want, please just don't take her away from me, please-"

"Jesus, Nick, I'm not going to steal your fucking child, I couldn't if I even wanted to," Harry exclaimed. "Don't you get it? I don't want to just be friends with you."

Nick stilled, feeling every single hair on his body stand up.

"Is that really such a surprise?"

Was it? Nick was battling his fight-or-flight response and ashamed and sick to death of being nervous, but was he surprised? "We could-" he blurted out, stumbling over his words, "I mean, will you- we could raise her together?"

"Why are you only asking me this now?"

It was like getting to the million pound question and realising you didn't know the answer; one step from the jackpot, and Nick had already used up all his lifelines. He couldn't speak.

Harry tried again. "Why did you think it would be a good idea to use my eggs for your kid if you didn't trust me?"

Nick coughed out a teary laugh. "Who says I don't trust you?"

"You did," Harry said, tired and frank, "when you said you weren't enough for me. Why don't you trust me enough to make that decision?"

"You don't know enough, you didn't know any better," Nick said quickly, "you were so young when we met."

"And I'm not anymore," Harry said, "yet here I am." Nick looked up and Harry met his gaze straight on, tears in his eyelashes but fearless despite that.

"Because I was scared," Nick said, holding their eyes and hoping Harry could see the honesty in his. "I'm fucking terrified, Haz."

Harry shifted, just the barest amount, so their knees were touching, and he whispered, "do it anyway."

***

_Dear Mr. Nick Grimshaw,_

_I am happy to inform you that your request to begin a course of IVF treatment has been approved, pending receipt of your first payment. Please double check the details below, as this is your last chance to amend them._

_Sperm donor : Mr Nick Grimshaw, London Sperm Bank_  
_Egg donor : Mr Harry Styles, Harley Street Fertility Clinic_  
_Surrogate : Ms Astrid Holm_

_Please call to arrange the first appointment of your_

Nick didn't read the rest of the email. He would later, he just knew none of it would go in now. He'd got the gist of it anyway, and he forwarded it to Harry, he'd get the interesting stuff relayed back to him once Harry had woken up, living in New York time as he currently was. So instead, he chucked his phone onto the opposite sofa and leaned back, grinning stupidly at the ceiling. He'd tell everyone else in a bit, but for now, he was going to savour one of his last ever moments truly alone.

 

***

 

Harry's face was still pressed into a towel as he came through the door, kicking it closed behind him with one foot, so his voice was muffled. Probably. He was in a pair of deliciously tight boxers and nothing else, so Nick wasn't exactly paying attention. The always-unexpected bulk of Harry's shoulders was speaking plenty to Nick and he was all too willing to listen; unfortunately, the face looked like it wanted a response.

"Huh?" He asked intelligently.

Harry laughed at him then chucked the towel at his head, which missed by a mile, and darted across the room to jump onto the bed, straddling Nick's hips. "I said, what about Lacey? For a name, I mean?"

"What, like leather and lace, the-"

"The Stevie Nicks-

"-Britney Spears-"

"-song, yeah. Wait, what?"

Nick pretended to consider it. "I know it's Lambert's favourite Britney song, so I'm sure he'd feel honoured. Stevie Nicks has done a cover of it? I didn't know, is it any good?"

"No, she's got her own song called- I mean, I sang it with her? Didn't you see the videos at least?"

"You sang with Stevie Nicks?" Nick couldn't keep his shit-eating grin down any longer. "Darling, I had no idea."

"You bastard," Harry laughed, twisting one of Nick's nipples a little harder than necessary in the bedroom. Nick retaliated by pinching his hip, and he squirmed away, making a noise that would be better suited to Pig. They settled once again lying on their sides, face to face in the middle of the bed, the rest of the room filled with boxes they had yet to unpack from the move.

Nick reached across to tuck a strand of hair behind Harry's ear. "No adjective names, okay, that's a rule. They won't play well with the Styles surname. Lacey Styles is a subsection on a lingerie website. Lacey Grimshaw-Styles is a monogrammed doily."

Harry snorted softly, absentmindedly pressing a kiss to Nick's palm, and there was a minute of silence. Nick was about to get up to turn off the light when he spoke again. "What if Styles wasn't in the equation?"

"What do you mean, love?" Nick felt his brow furrowing.

"Like, what if we just had Grimshaw as the surname," Harry said, slow and considered as always, forever sounding like he was struggling to find the words when Nick knew him far beyond well enough to know that he'd have rehearsed this in his head 3 times before speaking. "What if we just, like, left Styles out of it."

Nick was blinked, surprised. "Don't you want to share a surname with your child? I mean... All of this nonsense, I thought we've all decided to be a proper family, right?"

"Yeah, no, definitely, we're a proper family," Harry said at a speed that counted as quick for his standards, and his hand came up to catch Nick's, intertwining their fingers automatically. "Just, I thought maybe as part of that, we should all have the same surname?"

"What, so we'd all just have Grimshaw?" Nick asked, amused. "Nick Grimshaw, Harry Grimshaw, Lacey Grimshaw? Sounds good to me."

"Yeah?"

Harry's eyes were shining with something in the low light and it suddenly occured to Nick that he wasn't joking. "Wait, fuck, Harry," he propped himself up on one elbow, staring at Harry, incredulous, "are you proposing?"

"Well, I mean, not like, y'know, properly, I just always assumed that, like, at some point... Like, didn't you...?" His voice trailed off, suddenly uncertain.

"But what about, like..." Nick felt a bit punch drunk. "What about your whole, wotzit, stage name and that? Your brand? Harry Styles is kind of a big deal, isn't it?"

"Wouldn't change my stage name," Harry said, shrugging, but there was still something a bit intense in his eyes, "just my real name. Never been that attached to Styles in, like, actual life."

"I mean..." Nick felt almost helpless, watching as Harry's thumb traced across the back of his knuckles, but not in a bad way, maybe. He always wanted to deny things that seemed to good to be true, to not let himself leap in case he fell, but wasn't that what had been wrong the whole time? "I've never liked double-barrelled names anyway," he said thinly, "too posh for me."

"Yeah?" Harry said, voice small but the beginnings of a very big smile pulling at his cheeks.

"Yeah," Nick said softly, his heart burning, and he closed his eyes as he leaned in to kiss Harry, feeling he might burst from the happiness if he didn't. "We're not calling her Lacey," he said against Harry's lips.

"Okay," Harry said, his voice like a cracking dam at the mouth of what sounded like a whole reservoir of joy.

"Still no adjectives," Nick said around kisses and a laugh, "and no Fleetwood Mac songs."

"No Britney," Harry countered quickly, his other hand coming up to tangle in the hair at the nape of Nick's neck.

"Deal," Nick whispered, pressing that promise, and so much more, into Harry's mouth, hoping that it might find its way to his heart. Didn't really matter if not, he realised finally, there would be lots of opportunities to try again.


	2. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you didn't think this baby fic would have no baby in , did you ?

"C'mon, bug, where are we going? We're gunna be so late, are you sure this can't wait until after?"

"Da, no-oo," Bobbie drew out the 'o' sound, tugging on Harry's hand impatiently as she pulled him through the corridor, her other hand hitching up her floaty green dress. Or, as she called it, the 'fricking annoying suit'.

"We just passed the loos, if that's what you're-" he was interrupted as she pushed a door open, using her whole body weight, and led him into a small room, bright with Spanish sunlight and much more comfortable than the room Harry had been given. In a sofa on the wall to the left, Aimee grinned up at him.

"What, who's there?" The man sitting opposite her turned halfway before Harry's daughter leapt into his arms. "Bobbie? What's going- ah!" He slapped a hand over his eyes with a squeak.

Harry burst out laughing. "Nick, you tosser, what are you doing?"

"Bad luck!" Nick said, outraged. "Bobbie Andy Grimshaw, are you trying to curse me?"

"Daddy, stop being so silly," she said, with more exasperation than most 3 year olds should be able to muster. "I'm giving you your present!"

"Couldn't it have waited?"

"No, it has to be before! Auntie Aimee said so, she helped me!"

"Why doesn't that make me feel better?" Nick said, eyes obviously screwed shut under his hand for double protection. Harry's heart felt like it could burn through his ribs with love. "Okay, bean burger, what is it?" She cheered and climbed off his lap, grabbing Aimee's hand, who led her over to a small bag in the corner. Aimee grinned at Harry over her head before leaning down to help her.

Harry looked back at Nick, who had turned his head away now, and actually registered what he was wearing. He perched himself on the arm of the sofa. "That's a gorgeous suit, love," he murmured as he pressed a kiss to Nick's temple, careful to avoid the quaffed hair.

"What, now you've looked? We're doomed, Harold, doomed," he said faux-miserably, "it's all over before it began."

"It kinda began 4 years ago, didn't it?" Harry pretended not to notice as Nick peeked through his fingers, his attempts at subtlety somewhat impeded by how far he had to twist his neck to get a glimpse.

"12, if you think about it," he replied distractedly, and he dropped the pretence, lowering his hand to scrutinise Harry. "Bloody hell, thank God you're not wearing sequins. You look a bit good too. Knew we'd both be in florals, just knew it."

"Anything else would be a disappointment, right?"

Nick laughed, low and nervous, and stretched up to kiss him; Harry cupped the back of his neck and kissed back, trying to keep it light and failing dismally.

"Dad! Ada!" The pulled apart guiltily, Harry almost flinching off the sofa, as Bobbie glared at them.

"You'll crease your shirts, you absolute horndogs," Aimee complained, but she was smiling.

"Sorry," Nick said, blushing, even after all this time, "what's up?"

"Here!" Bobbie almost shouted with excitement, thrusting a classy black necklace box in their direction. "Open it!"

Harry felt like his face was gunna split with how big he was smiling. He looked over at Nick, whose eyes were shining wetly as he looked their daughter. "On three?" He suggested.

"Yep," Nick said. "One, two, three!"

Together, they flipped the lid up to reveal 3 silver chains nestled in the black velvet box, glittering prettily in the light. There were two smaller loops, bracelets, and one slightly bigger one, all with matching pendants of silver anchors. They were simple and hefty, strong rather than delicate.

"Oh, darling..." Harry sighed, reaching out to touch one but not quite getting there.

"You like them?" Bobbie asked, somehow nervous.

"Of course we do, Bee, they're beautiful, aren't they, Nick?" Harry said. Nick nodded mutely, and he gripped Harry's arm so tight that it almost hurt. After a life of talking, Harry didn't think he'd ever seen him speechless before.

"Did you pick them yourself?" Nick eventually managed to croak out.

"Auntie Aimee helped," Bobbie replied, "but I chose them."

"Thank you," Nick said in a strangled voice, letting Harry take the box as he pulled her into his arms, "they're so beautiful, I love them so much, I love you so much, yeah?"

"Yeah," she said, pleased with herself as she curled against Nick's chest the way she did when she was a baby.

Harry let them have their moment as he stood and folded Aimee in a hug. "Aims, they're perfect, this is bonkers."

"They really are perfect then," she replied, kissing his cheek and squeezing back tight. "I'll let you know where they came from when you give me my next godchild, no sooner."

"Is that coersion I detect?" Harry faked shock.

"Persuasion, babes," she said, stepping back, "now come on, put them on?"

They did, making a joke of not knowing where the third one was meant to go before Bobbie got impatient and trod on Nick's toes.

"Jeez, Bobbie, violence isn't the answer!" He hissed, clutching his foot as though it had been a sumo wrestler stamping on him rather than a petite toddler. Harry frowned, and made a mental note about how much they spoiled her; he had a feeling that it was a note he'd made and lost before. Not too concerned, he held her hair out of the way as Nick did the clasp on her necklace.

"Aimee? Nick?" There was a knock on the door as Ian shouted. "You ready for places?"

"Shi-mmering fairy dust," Aimee said, trying to smooth over her false start with a glance at Bobbie, "be right out, babe!"

"And have you seen Harry? Mitch is looking for him everywhere, he's not in there looking for a snog, perchance?" His voice was longsuffering in a way that suggested he already knew the answer to his question.

"No," Nick called, unconvincingly.

Aimee turned and fixed them with her patented New York glare. "You have 30 seconds until I bring Mitch here and we drag you out, no matter what state you're in," she said sternly, "c'mon, Bobbs! Kisses for your dads."

Dutifully, Bobbie placed a big wet kiss on Nick's cheek on her way off his lap, and one on Harry's as she left the room, Aimee ushering her along. "All the love!" She called magnanimously over her shoulder.

As the door swung closed, Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm never gunna forgive you for teaching her that, y'know."

"'Course," Nick said, "why do you think I did it?" They stood in silence for a moment, eyes locked on each others.

"Are we-"

"Are you-"

"-really doing this?"

"-ready to do this?"

They spoke at the same time, then laughed softly together.

"Yeah," Nick said steadily.

"Me too," Harry nodded, and he held up his right hand, wrist turned so the anchor charm fell into his palm. "Our kid's pretty alright, isn't she?"

"Must get that from your mum," Nick shrugged, "I know we can't have had anything to do with it."

"Don't be harsh, Eileen deserves some credit too," Harry said. "Do you reckon Aimee actually deserves credit for these, though?"

Nick considered it for a second, bringing up his arm to look at their bracelets next to each other. "Nah, the anchor was always Bee's favourite tattoo of yours. Absolutely biased that she chose a tattoo from you though, rather than my absolute art gallery."

"Good thing she chose one of the tattoos I got for you then," Harry smiled, taking Nick's hand.

Nick's eyes narrowed. "You got the anchor to cover up an embarrassing tattoo from your ex, Haz."

"Yeah, technically, I guess," Harry shrugged, "but the design I chose for you."

"Whatever you say, popstar."

A moment passed in silence, then -

"Did you really?" Nick's voice was uncharacteristically vulnerable, younger somehow, and he looked up to see something almost desperate swimming in Nick's eyes.

"Well, yeah, I mean, your Primrose Hill flat and you," he said, keeping his voice breezy and light so as not to allow the deep ocean of aching love in him an inch. He knew it'd just take a mile anyway.

"I didn't know that," Nick said, blinking rapidly, and then the door burst open.

"Right boys, tuck your penises back inside your pants, please, we are-" Aimee broke off, seemingly disappointed at Harry and Nick's lack of dishevelment. "God, parenthood made you guys boring. Come on!"

Quickly, Harry placed a peck on Nick's lips, unable to resist, and skirted round Aimee. "See you out there," he called as Mitch dragged him away, "I'll be the one at the altar!"

"I'll be the one leaving you there for Zayn!"

"Still not funny!" His voice echoed off the stone walls as Mitch dragged him out the door.

"20 minutes late and we haven't even started," Mitch said, exasperated, "how am I gunna convince Sarah I can plan a wedding well now?"

"No need," Harry grinned as they came around the back way to the little garden, "I'm planning your wedding for you, absolutely no doubt. It's going to be in Ibiza." Before Mitch could protest, he pulled him through the trees into place at the altar.

In the front row, his mum caught his eye, already teary and clutching tight to Eileen, and gave him a little wave. He shot a quick thumbs up back, which Niall, sitting behind Anne, thought was meant for him and he replied enthusiastically to. Harry snorted and let his eyes trace along the second row, past Louis and Liam and Fincham and Fiona, to land on Zayn, whose smile was somewhat more of a grimace. He shifted in his seat, obviously uncomfortable, but Harry was just glad he was there. Even being in the same room would have been inconceivable this time two years ago. At Harry's hip, under the laurels, old tattoos burned dully but they no longer hurt.

With a similar lack of flare to Harry's arrival, Bobbie and Liv appeared, and there was a general 'aww' from the audience as Bobbie tried to rush to Harry. Bobbie, having recently learned what the word 'patronising' meant, frowned grumpily at the attention and proceeded to glare at every passing guest, except Annie of course. Liv carried on valiantly, keeping a tight grip on her cousin's hand until they came to stand next to the priest. Still smiling at his daughter, Harry missed the moment Nick arrived, so when he looked back up it was as if Nick had been dropped there by the gods, fully formed and perfect. His black suit was perfectly tailored, simple and classic but offset by his floral shirt, just shy of sheer, and he was obviously nervous, shrinking from the attention as if he wasn't clinging onto the arm of a woman with the brightest hair in the world. Aimee was obviously already crying. Harry shouldn't have been able to see it at this distance without his glasses, but he could have sworn Nick's bracelet was glinting. The best thing about it was that he wasn't even any more beautiful than normal.

Aimee kissed Nick's cheek and let his arm go to walk the last meter or so alone, and Harry turned back to Mitch. He could feel a dumb grin on his own face that was mirrored in the crow's feet at Mitch's eyes; Mitch handed him the ring with an eskimo kiss and a whispered 'go get 'em'. Harry turned back, took two step, and was there. Neither of them even said anything. Harry had wondered what he was going to do in this moment, had tried not to plan it and let it be spontaneous, but now it was here, he felt inadequate. Inadequate in the face of this love he felt for the man in front of him, for the love he knew Nick felt in return; inadequate in the face of the family they already had and the future they were already living in; inadequate in the face of this group of people they wanted to share that life with. But then Nick took his hands and he forgot what it felt like to be not enough.

Despite her sour expression, Bobbie behaved perfectly throughout the ceremony, doing exactly what she'd been told in rehearsals. Harry couldn't have been more grateful, and he told her as much when they were walking back to start the reception.

"It's like Bear's birthday," she said seriously, "you have to let other people have their moments." Her little voice sounded so strongly like Eileen in that moment that Harry could have cried.

"Was that emotional intelligence?" Asked Jane incredulously from just behind them, "from my kid brother's kid?"

"Oi!" Harry protested, as everyone in the vicinity burst out laughing, "that's my husband you're talking about!"

"My husband," echoed Nick, slightly dazed, too quiet for anyone else to hear. Harry looked over at him and they shared a grin. He pressed their foreheads together, eyes falling shut, vaguely aware of their daughter holding court over the rest of the group, with Nick's big eyes and Harry's curls, and a confidence that was all her own.

"'Bout time," he whispered.

"Harry Grimshaw." Nick's voice was as happy as Harry felt.

"Get it tattooed."

"Just you watch, mate," Nick teased, "I just might." The birds on Harry's chest took flight and the butterfly under his heart flexed her wings; all over Harry's body, he felt things coming to life. This was who he was now, alive for the people on this island, for his daughter and his husband. That was to say, he was alive for himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank u for reading ! i set out to write a domestic ficlet and uhhhhhhhhhhhh well at least i wrote something , let's say ~ i hope it brought some kind of enjoyment to u , even if there was a lot more anger and angst than i expected ^^ we bought it back with the saccharine fluff at the end
> 
> pls come find me on tumblr at [gricknimshaw](https://www.gricknimshaw.tumblr.com) so we can all commiserate through the hrought and nick's transition to drive time , it's gunna be a super interesting time i reckon !
> 
> i'd love love love any comments , if this gave u any kind of reaction tell me about it ! makes my whole actual day


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